Related papers: Wind-powered ultraluminous X-ray sources
While there is now a consensus that X-ray binaries (XRBs) are the dominant X-ray sources in the early Universe and play a significant role during the epoch of heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM), recent studies report contradicting…
We investigate the spatial coincidence of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with young massive stellar clusters. In particular we perform astrometry on Chandra and HST data of two ULXs that are possibly associated with such clusters. To…
Roche lobe overflow from a donor star onto a black hole or neutron star binary companion can evolve to a phase of unstable runaway mass-transfer, lasting as short as hundreds of orbits ($\lesssim 10^{2}$ yr for a giant donor), and…
Despite the 30-year history of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) studies, issues like the majority of their physical natures (i.e., neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, or intermediate black holes) as well as the accretion mechanisms…
In this paper we present the results of the first systematic search for counterparts to nearby ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in the near-infrared (NIR). We observed 62 ULXs in 37 galaxies within 10 Mpc and discovered 17 candidate NIR…
We present a photometric survey of the optical counterparts of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in nearby (< 5 Mpc) galaxies. Of the 33 ULXs with Hubble & Chandra data, 9 have no visible…
We present a systematic analysis of archival HST WFPC2 ``Association'' data sets that correlate with the Chandra positions of a set of 44 ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) of nearby galaxies. We have improved the Chandra-HST relative…
I give a brief review of how X-rays from nearby galaxies are used as direct tracers of recent star formation. This leads to the conclusion that it is the most luminous point-like sources that are associated with star formation and that the…
Ultra-compact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) are a subclass of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) characterized by ultra-short orbital periods, typically less than $60-80\,$min. They consist of a compact mass-accretor and a hydrogen-poor mass-donor,…
Luminosities of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are uncomfortably large if compared to the Eddington limit for isotropic accretion onto stellar-mass object. Most often either supercritical accretion onto stellar mass black hole or…
If ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are powered by accretion onto stellar remnant black holes, then many must be accreting at super-Eddington rates. It is predicted that such high accretion rates should give rise to massive,…
In the local Universe, integrated X-ray emission from high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) is dominated by the brightest ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with luminosity >10^40 erg/s. Such rare objects probably also dominated the production…
We present the results of an archival XMM-Newton study of the bright X-ray point sources (L_X > 10^38 erg/s) in 32 nearby galaxies. From our list of approximately 100 point sources, we attempt to determine if there is a low-state…
We present results from the remaining sources in our search for near-infrared (NIR) candidate counterparts to ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) within $\simeq$ 10 Mpc. We observed 23 ULXs in 15 galaxies and detected NIR candidate…
The black hole mass and accretion rate in Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies, whose X-ray luminosities exceed those of the brightest black holes in our Galaxy by hundreds and thousands of times$^{1,2}$, is an unsolved…
I suggest that the beaming factor in bright ULXs varies as $b \propto \dot m^{-2}$, where $\dot m$ is the Eddington ratio for accretion. This is required by the observed universal $L_{\rm soft} \propto T^{-4}$ relation between soft--excess…
Optical photometric and spectroscopic data are presented that show an association of an ultraluminous X-ray source in NGC 7331 with a young star cluster of mass 1.1e5 solar masses and age 4.25 Myr. If the ULX is part of the bright stellar…
We report the discovery of a new ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) associated with a globular cluster in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4649. The X-ray source was initially detected with a luminosity below 5 x 10^38 erg/s, but in subsequent…
We report on the discovery of a new, transient ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the galaxy NGC 7090. This new ULX, which we refer to as NGC 7090 ULX3, was discovered via monitoring with $Swift$ during 2019-20, and to date has exhibited a…
We present a new analysis of X-ray spectra of the archetypal ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Holmberg IX X-1 obtained by the Swift, XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observatories. This ULX is a persistent source, with a typical luminosity of ~10^40…